Philosophy Now Forum

Philosophy

“Even if you are alone you wage war with yourself.” Dejan Stojanovic

Imagine my own then.

“In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.” Jean-Paul Sartre

Or, here, Hell is other posters?

“Sex is a powerful intent to create: the creation of pleasure, creation of love, and ultimately the creation of life. It connects and syncs two beings emotionally, physically, and mentally and is one of the strongest expressions of love that exists in this World.” Forrest Curran

Note to Supannika: Touche.

“How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.” Arthur Schopenhauer

Take a bow?

“Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.” Bernard Beckett

Click, I'm guessing.

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well....” Rene Magritte

Mine for yours?

What does it mean to be a “good girl”? Well, it means to be like all the other girls. And what does that mean? Well, spend a few days watching everything you can on telelvision. See if it doesn’t come to you.

Lots of films like this one though. The “culture” tends to mass produce folks that are pretty much like everybody else. They’re not too bright, interesting, curious, immaginative…or looking to change that. They embrace pop culture and consuming mass quantities of “stuff”. They are obsessed with all things celebrity and in figuring out how to be one themselves. For about 15 minutes.

The solution? Well, it’s completely apolitical of course. You just miraculously bump into one of those few and far between folks who do not buy into it…and he or she changes you. Of course that won’t work until it finally begins to dawn on you that you feel trapped in a life that is exactly same every single day. And one without a shred of real passion…or meaning. Only it might be said that these two have not really thought it through all that much. And they both work at Retail Rodeo. Besides, he’s about as mature as Eddie Haskell.

Oh, and then there is Cheryl.

As for the ending, she is basically smack dab in the middle of square one again. Not a fucking thing has really changed save the baby. Some will see it as a bad girl who has learned her lesson. She is back to being a good girl again. But others will see it for what it really is instead. And that could be just about anything.


The Good Girl

Justine [voiceover]: As a girl you see the world as a giant candy store filled with sweet candy and such. But one day you look around and you see a prison and you’re on death row. You wanna run or scream or cry but something’s locking you up. Are the other folks cows chewing cud until the hour comes when their heads roll? Or are they just keeping quiet like you, planning their escape.

You first.

Corny: You got any interest in reading the Bible?
Justine: I have my own, you know, beliefs.
Corny: Well, we don’t preach fire and brimstone. 10 Commandments, gotta live by those. Other than the usual ways, we’re not interested in scaring people. We’re about loving Jesus.
Justine: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I kind of like my nights to myself.
Corny: Well, maybe you’ll have night after night of eternal hellfire all to yourself. Just kidding you.

Like hell he is?

Justine: Whatcha readin’?
Holden: Catcher in the Rye… I’m named after it.
Justine: What’s your name?
[Holden stares at her blankly]
Justine: Catcher?

Close?

Cheryl: Here’s your change and fuck you very much.
Shopper: Excuse me?
Cheryl: And thank you very much.

Zooey!

Justine [to Holden]: I hate my job. I hate everybody here. I’m starting to understand why maniacs shoot everybody to pieces.

When did that first occur to you?

Justine: They call you Tom?
Holden: It’s my slave name. Holden is what I call myself.

Clever enough for you?

Justine [to Holden]: I was Iooking at you in the store, and I Iiked how you kept to yourseIf. I saw in your eyes that you hate the worId. I hate it too.

Losers, right?

Justine [voiceover]: After living in the dark for so long, a glimpse of the light can make you giddy. Strange thoughts come into your head and you better think’em. Has a special fate been calling you and you not listening? Is there a secret message right in front of you and you’re not reading it? Is this your last, best chance? Are you gonna take it? Or are you going to the grave with unlived lives in your veins?

Uh, let's not go there, okay?

Phil: I’ve been thinking about what you were saying about my sperm being Iow. I mean, I know I’ve got good sperm. Baby-making sperm. I suppose it couIdn’t hurt to have it confirmed by an expert.
Justine [out of the blue]: Who gives a shit? Who needs a fucking baby, anyway? Why don’t you get that goddamn TV fixed?
Phil [startled] What the heII?!
Justine: It sounds Iike a heIicopter is landing in here.

You're thinking she might just succeed in busting out of her own fucking prison.

Cheryl: The first rule of fashion is you have to look weird. What I’m doing has come straight here from France.
Old Woman: Oh?
Cheryl: It’s called Cirque du Face, meaning “Circus of the Face”, and it’s all the rage with the Frenchies, ma’am.
Old Woman: Well, you’re the professional.

Tee-hee.

Justine [voiceover]: Bubba sat like that for what seemed like 10 years before he began to speak. When he opened his mouth, he talked about the sad ruin that was his life. He talked about how he loved Phil and me and how he always wanted a girlfriend like me, and to be like Phil…to this imaginary girl like me who he’d never found. Then he talked about giving up dreams, and how it’s part of getting older. Bubba had given up his dream of being Phil. He had accepted his fate of being Bubba, always and forever. Then last week, a door that had always been shut swung wide open. Bubba felt this was no chance coincidence. A cosmic force was at work. The sounds of me making love to a man who wasn’t Phil was like a shout in Bubba’s ear from the creator himself. What it meant or what to do or why, Bubba didn’t know. All he knew was that he hated me for poisoning the well of idealism from which he had drunk for so long. I was no longer Bubba’s image of perfection. I was just a liar and a whore, and that sickened him. But on the other hand, he loved me for releasing him from the chains of bitter envy that bound him to Phil. Phil was no Superman, just a cuckold and a fool, and that was beautiful. Bubba felt there was one thing left for us to do. Something that would solve both of our problems and end this tragic saga.

Bubba. Need we say more?

Justine: Bubba, I’m not gonna sleep with you.
Bubba: Look, you got your choice to make, destroy your marriage and break your husband’s heart, or have sex with me right now.

Where's Anton Chigurh when you need him?

Holden: You know, sometimes I think to myself: At least it can’t get any worse. But it can! It can get worse! As long as you can say you hit rock bottom, you haven’t.

And we know how this turns out.

Justine [voiceover]: How it all came down to this, only the Devil knows. Retail Rodeo is at the corner on my left. The motel is down the road to my right. I close my eyes and try to peer into the future. On my left, I saw days upon days of lipstick and ticking clocks, dirty looks and quiet whisperings. And burning secrets that just won’t ever die away. And on my right, what could I picture? The blue sky, the desert earth, stretching out into the eerie infinity. A beautiful never-ending nothing.

Retail Rodeo it is then.

Justine [voiceover]: That day I read the story Holden had wrote for me. It was kinda different from the other ones but kinda the same. It was about a girl who was put upon, whose job is like a prison, and whose life has lost all meaning. Other people don’t get her, especially her husband. One day she meets a boy who is also put upon and they fall in love. After spending their whole lives never getting got, with one look they get each other completely. In the end the girl and the boy run away together into the wilderness, never to be heard from again.

I'll get you if you'll get me.

Road trip. At least the first half. But, unless it’s a comedic farce [like, say, the movie Road Trip], it goes without saying you won’t like the movie unless you like at least one of the folks in it. And if you end up liking three for three, all the better. And it’s not often they are all women. All the better still.

Naturally, at least two of them could not possibly be more different. Meaning [at first] they really get on each other’s nerves. One gets choked up watching The Way We Were and the other can’t stop laughing. So, you know what’s coming there.

And then there’s Holly. And the murder trial. And AIDS.

At first I didn’t even recognize Mary Louise Parker. And that’s because she lost 20 pounds to play the role. And that’s because her character here is afflicted with AIDS. In fact, the part about AIDS is everywhere here. That and gender. The film does the best it can to give us insights into both. But nothing can ever really be pinned down. Not even with the help of tarot cards.


Boys On the Side

Jane [to Johnny]: She’s holding you back, man. Everyone says so. She’s like Yoko with bangs.

And how many of them are still around?

Jane: Look, Robin, right? You’re a nice lady and I’m sure there’s a lot of things about yourself that you just can’t help and I understand that. But I don’t fuckin’ think we mesh at all. And I’m sure there’s somebody out there who wants to go cross country with the whitest woman on the face of the earth, singing Carpenter songs and reliving childhood memories. But it ain’t me.

Well, that makes at least two of us.

Jane: Oh well, tell me. What do you want?
Robin: It’s not very liberated, I know but I want a husband with a decent job. And, I want two kids, a boy and a girl, in that order, and a soap box colonial with three bedrooms, a sun porch, a stairway with a white banister, and a convertible den.
Jane: You could’ve been Donna Reed in another life.

Is that a bad thing?

Nick: Stick to what you know, Jane. That’s something about you girls I could never figure out. What’s sex like without a dick?
Jane: I don’t know, man. You tell me.

Bullseye!

Jane: No, we’re not taking drug money on the road with us. Put it back.
Holly: Well, it’s not like you can tell by looking at it.
Jane: OK, you have a point. We’ll take half.

Like with the other half you can tell?

Jane: You were gonna bring a baby into that house?!
Holly: Oh, like, what were my options?
Jane: How about abortion?
Holly: I couldn’t do that. I’d feel like a murderer.
Jane: Honey, you ARE a murderer!
Holly: Oh, God. To think it’s possible I killed my baby’s daddy.
Jane: “To think it’s possible?” You hit him in the head with a baseball bat. He’s dead.

That'll do it.

Jane: AIDS? You tellin’ me she’s got AIDS?!
Doctor: Yes. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.

She knows now.

Jane: What is this, below the belly button?
Robin: I’m not going to say “pussy” if that’s what you’re after, okay, I hate that.
Jane: Okay. So, what do you call it?
Robin: Down there.
Jane: Oh, come on! “Down there!”
Robin: Well, “vagina” seems so formal.
Jane: But you make it sound like a basement!
Robin: Okay. Honestly? Fine. “Hoo-hoo” or “cissy.”
Jane: You’re kidding, right? A “hoo-hoo” or a “cissy,” what is that?
Robin: Well that’s what my mother called it. I had a hoo-hoo or a cissy and my brother had a “noodle” or a “dingle.”
Jane: And that’s what you still call it?
Robin: Well, it’s better than “pussy.” Or “beaver.” What’s that about? I never got that. Or worse…
Jane: Worse? Did you say worse? Now, what could be worse? I have to hear you say it.
Robin: Well, you know. I’m not going to say it.
Jane: Oh, come on! “C-U-N-T.” Come on, please?
Robin: I don’t think so.

But Jane finally drags it out of her. Then they walk about the house shouting it. And this means what exactly?

Abe: You’re not…you’re not over him yet, are you?
Holly: Well, we’re all over him. Like, six feet over him.

Why 6 feet, he wondered? Why not 4 or 8?

Elaine: They do that now, don’t they?
Robin: What?
Elaine: Call themselves “lesbos.”
Robin: Oh, Mom.
Elaine: And she makes it sound like a compliment.

Of course, they get to call themselves whatever they like.

Massarelli: You are, however, one of these gay women that we read about, or do you prefer lesbian?
Jane: Do I prefer them to you?
Massarelli: Are you gay?
Jane: Do I look gay?
Massarelli: One last time: Are - You - Gay?
Jane: Yes - I - Am.
[Massarelli turns away, satisfied]
Jane: And I’m sure you hear that from women all the time. But in my case, it happens to be true.

Bullseye!

Elaine: I do the best I can, honey. I know it’s not enough, and I’m sorry. But that’s what you get in life, you know? You get whoever you end up with. Whoever is willing to stick by you, and fight for you, when everyone else is gone.

And I can always count on all of you here, right?

Robin [to Massarelli]: …it was over between them. I know you think a girl like her, the most important thing in her life is a man, but she didn’t need him. She had us. I don’t know what it is, but, there’s something that goes on between women. You men know that because it’s the same for you. I’m not saying one sex is better than the other. I’m just saying, like speaks to like.

Then those who take this all the way to...the gas chamber?

Robin: It was me you loved, wasn’t it?
Jane: Yeah. Still.

Cut!

Ottessa Moshfegh from My Year of Rest and Relaxation

I can't point to any one event that resulted in my decision to go into hibernation. Initially, I just wanted some downers to drown out my thoughts and judgments, since the constant barrage made it hard not to hate everyone and everything. I thought life would be more tolerable if my brain were slower to condemn the world around me.

Some will go into hibernation here as well. Unfortunately, they come back.

I felt myself float up and away, higher and higher into the ether until my body was just an anecdote, a symbol, a portrait hanging in another world.

We need a pill for that, don't we?

I rebelled in silent ways, with my thoughts.

Wow, I'll bet that shook things up!

I thought that if I did normal things—held down a job, for example—I could starve off the part of me that hated everything. If I had been a man, I may have turned to a life of crime.

Is that more a compliment or an insult to women?

I wasn't an insomniac, but I was miserable.

You either get this or you don't.

I feel very, very alone.
We're all alone, Reva, I told her. It was true: I was, she was. This was the maximum comfort I could offer.

Part of me gets it and part of me does not. Unless, of course, it's the other way around.

A sophisticated art dealer from Chicago shows up in North Carolina to meet an eccentric artist. So, while there, why not drop in on the Husband’s weird [and somewhat less than urbane] family. What can’t go wrong?

It’s got comedy and drama written all over it. Only what’s comedy to some is drama to others. Misunderstandings are built right into “world views” this far removed.

These are the kind of folks that really do get on the nerves of those that are of another kind altogether. But probably nowhere near as much as they get on the nerves of each other. Let me put it this way: the nicest one is the most obnoxious of all.

Also, admittedly, a lot of it is just politics. Or awash in religion. The nicest people in the world can irritate the shit out of you when they rub you the wrong way there. I know they do me. There are the parts I come to like…sometimes a lot…but then they open their mouths.


Junebug

Wark: Now, here… I couldn’t finish Lee’s cock on the front… so I painted it around on the back.
Scout: That’s General Lee’s cock?
Wark: Ya.

Some won't recognize it at all.

Ashley: I want to know everything there is to know about you. I want you to tell us every little thing.
Madeleine: God. That would be so boring.
Ashley: Not to me. What-Makes-You-Tick? Were you born in Chicago? I was born right here. I’ve lived here all my whole life. My favorite animal is the meerkat. Do you know what they are? They’re so cute. I’ve got this little charm bracelet with meerkats on it. Did you have lots of boyfriends? I bet you did. Did you ever try out for cheerleading or anything? I tried out, but I didn’t make it.

She never fucking shuts up. And she’s known her about 3 minutes. Then:[/i]

Madeleine: I was born in Japan. My father was in the diplomatic service. And then we moved to Africa. And then to Washington, DC for a short while and then back to Africa and then to Chicago.
Ashley: I’ll bet you went to college, huh?

Or at least graduated from high school.

Johnny [at work]: I worked with this one guy. He liked to go deer hunting. He got a tick stuck on his anus. He thought it was a hemorrhoid. He kept on putting Preparation H on it for week, made it all supple. He had his wife look at it and she screamed, “Oh my God, it’s a tick!”. He pulled it off and stomped it and it wouldn’t even crush because the Preparation H made it so soft.

That ever happen to you? So, far I've been lucky.

Ashley [to Johnny]: God loves you just the way you are. But He loves you too much to let you stay that way.

Go ahead, use that yourself.

Ashley [to Madeleine]: All I really want is for Johnny to love me like he did in high school.

Shades of The River, let's say.

Madeleine [startled when Johnny puts his hand on her ass]: What are you doing? Hey. Oh shit. I’m sorry. Oh my god, Johnny, it’s so sweet almost. I’m sorry.
Johhny: What, you think I’m a fuckin’ idiot? Ever since you got here you’ve been playing me, man. Don’t tell me you didn’t mean anything by it. I know it when I see it. I’m not stupid! I’m not an idiot!
Madeleine: Johnny, you completely misunderstood me. I was helping you. Sweetheart, listen…
Johnny: Oh shut up! You bitch! Fuck! Where the hell you think George come from anyway? He’s no better than us! And neither are you.

Well, I don't know about that, Johnny.

Madeleine: I believe, Mr. Wark, I love your work more than Mark Lane does.
Wark: I’m a collaborator with God. This life here is just a saddening well of tears. I got no great wish to tarry here. And I’m ready to ascend anytime. But my job here is to make the invisible visible.
Madeleine: I want to help you. I want to give you the opportunity to do just that. I can.
Wark: There. Right there, that’s my Niggerland Uprising series. Poor old n***** slaves arising up against their evil oppressors. I never could draw a colored face. I’ve never known one personally. I just look in a mirror and put my own in there. I want you to tell him that he’s helping me get my message to the world.
Madeleine: You could reach the whole of Europe with me. Think about that.
Wark: Sissy says New York.
Madeleine: Okay, well, if New York is the obstacle I can absolutely guarantee you that we would show in New York. We work with Mimi Steinberg there…
Wark: A Jew?
Madeleine: What?
Wark: Jewess? That lady? That wouldn’t be what we want’n to do.
Madeleine: Mark Lane is Jewish.
Wark: What?!

Is she even listening to this guy? Or is it always about the art?

Ashley [after she lost her baby]: It’s not my fault.
George: Course not.
Ashley: And all that time and all that stuff I got and all those months. It was just all for nothing! And those fucking doctors! They think that they know everything! But they don’t know anything. They don’t know anything. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why would God let this happen! Why would he. I just wanted something good to come out of all of this!

On the other hand, no God and shit just happens.

George [to Madeleine on the way back to Chicago]: I’m so fuckin’ glad we’re out of there.

I think he means it.

Watch enough reality crime docs and you know this sort of stuff really does go on all the time. People kill folks for money. Family folk. Or hire other folks to do it. But that’s what happens when you live in a culture where having money is second only to drawing breath in priority. Only in “reality” almost nobody charges $25,000. Five, ten thousand tops. Some will even do it for a couple hundred dollars…or just for the fun of it.

But then the entertainment industry does like to rub it in the faces of those who need money [or want a lot more of it]: here, look at all these folks who have it. Wouldn’t you like to be like them?

The folks here are your stereotypical poor white trash. And yes they live in a trailer park. But then I once did too. There must be different kinds. And this is Texas. Dallas, Texas. But not the part where the Ewings lived. Though folks killed for money there too. Basically, these folks are just offered up for us to gawk at. As near as I can figure. And then to measure the distance between their lives and our own.

And the only one you really care about at all is Dottie. She is sort of, well, naive and innocent. And sweet. She’s a bit, uh, slow. But pretty as hell. And a virgin. She’s almost like a little girl.

As for the ending, well, we don't really get that far.

In an interview Gina Gershon revealed that she wore a merkin. After ordering a wide variety, she settled on one she named Bertha. IMDb

Good to know.


Killer Joe

Chris: Open the door!
Sharla [answers door, naked from the waist down]: What?
Chris: Jesus, put some clothes on! Why would you answer the door like that?
Sharla: I didn’t know it was you.

Not a real beaver though, right?

Dottie: I heard y’all talking about killing mama. I think it’s a good idea.
Chris: Well, there you go.

Then it get's complicated.

Killer Joe: That poor, miserable bastard set his own genitals on fire just to teach his girlfriend a lesson. I guess he showed her. I wonder if she ever got over it.
Dottie: Was he all right?
Killer Joe: No. No, he was not all right. He set his genitals on fire.

Postmodern love.

Dottie: Are you gonna kill my mama?
Killer Joe: I don’t know. Why?
Dottie: I was just curious.

Really, that's basically the case.

Killer Joe: My payment is $25 thousand dollars, in cash, in advance. No exceptions.
Ansel: 25?
Killer Joe: Yes sir.
Ansel [to Chris]: I thought you said 20.
Chris: I was told 20.
Killer Joe: 25. Is that a problem?
Chris: We don’t have a problem with 25. That’s not our problem.
Killer Joe: What is your problem?
Chris: We have a problem with the advance.
Killer Joe: No exceptions.
Chris: Sir, let me explain. One of the reasons we’re interested in having this done, is my mother holds a very large insurance policy.
Killer Joe: They usually do.
Chris: We thought if we could guarantee payment after the policy had been covered…
Killer Joe: Look, this really isn’t open for discussion. The conversation is finished.
[Chris goes after him as he leaves]
Killer Joe: What did you think this is, Let’s Make a Deal? This is serious business you’re fucking with here, boy.
Chris: I’m aware of that.
Killer Joe: No, I don’t think you are. I don’t take you seriously
Chris: This is going to get done, one way or another.

Then he spots Dottie.

Killer Joe [looking put the door at Dottie]: Of course we never discussed the possibility of a retainer.
Chris: What do you mean?
Killer Joe: You know where to reach me. Call me if she is interested.
Chris: Are you talkin’ about my sister?
Killer Joe: Is that who she is?

Then things get complicated.

Ansel: We could kill her ourselves.
Chris: Dad, you’re gonna kill somebody? You can’t even tell time.

That wouldn't surprise, well, it didn't suprise me.

Killer Joe: Dottie, do you trust me?
Dottie: Not quite.

Go ahead, try to figure her out.

Killer Joe: Tuna casserole! May I serve?
Dottie: How are you gonna kill my mama?
Killer Joe: That’s not appropriate dinner conversation, Dottie.
Dottie: It is if you poison her.

See what I mean?

Ansel [to Chris]: Who told you about Killer Joe?!

Uh-oh.

Chris [to Dottie…but really to the world]: Do you like Texas? These people talk about it like it’s such a great place and all, but it’s really just A BUNCH OF GODDAMN HICKS AND REDNECKS WITH TOO MUCH SPACE TO WALK AROUND IN!!
Dottie: It’s warm.

Oh, yeah.

Killer Joe [holding out a photograph]: Whose dick is that?
Sharla: Where’d you get that?
[he walks over to Ansel]
Killer Joe: Is that your dick, Ansel?
Ansel: No.
Killer Joe: Now, whose dick is it?

You can just feel this accelerating tension revolving aound them as the actual truth comes out. Drip by drip by drip.

Killer Joe: I mean all she did was suck his cock and try and steal your money. It could have been worse.
Ansel: How?
Killer Joe: Well… no, I suppose that’s about as bad as it gets.

Anything can happen.

Dottie [moving her finger back to the trigger]: I’m gonna have a baby.

The end. Sort of. We never know who ends up actually surviving

-Imp

As with Primer above, this is all about the [at times] entirely enigmatic implications of time travel. What if this and what if that. But not nearly as scientifically technical. Here it’s just there. Still, trying to keep all these relationships “rational” in your head is more than most of us can manage…at least once you get past the first Hector. And even then it’s always slipping in and out of our capacity to fully grasp.

Some argue that this film is less of a mindfuck than Primer. Don’t believe them. Unless of course they’re right. I just see it as a different sort of mindfuck. There are fewer characters but the relationships between them all [going back and forth in time] is just as perplexing. At least to someone as conflicted regarding the science of “time travel” as I am. It’s all about the law of unintended consequences. Okay, but who can really know what the hell that means regarding multiple versions of your self.

On the other hand, I have always been one of those folks who enjoy falling into the performance of the magician without having to figure out how [exactly] it was done. Though with time travel no one is really entirely certain if it even can be done.

All that aside, I think this is a really clever movie. I’m just not exactly sure why.


Timecrimes

Clara [to Hector]: Time flies around here.

Little does she know in which direction.

The Scientist: We’ve seen each other before, right? The liquid you’re soaked in…that tank is still a prototype.
[Hector is watching himself in the past through a pair of binoculars]
The Scientist: You went back in time.

Sort of.

The Scientist: For God’s sake you can’t go back home. You’re already home.

Sort of.

The Scientist [trying to explain what happened]: This is you. The arrow moves forward from past to future, okay? But at this point you enter the tank [the time machine] and travel an hour and a half into the past…to here. You become a sort of Hector 2. The one at your house is Hector 1.
Hector: Hector 1?
The Scientist: Hector 1—your reflection in the mirror, remember? But there’s only one arrow.
Hector: But for how long?
The Scientist: Your “reflection” will last up to here. You can hide here, while I’ll reconfigure the tank. I’ll have it ready for nightfall. Hector 1 will show up. I’ll get him in the machine and send him to the past.

This is 1 + 1 = 2 compared to what’s coming.

The Scientist: What is this? You called your house? I say lay low and you call your house?!.. Did you talk to yourself?
Hector: No, I just called the house.
The Scientist: Did you talk to yourself?!

Sort of.

The Scientist: I can’t put a chain on you or lock you in the basement. But if you alter events and stop Hector 1 from getting in the tank, it will be the end of your life as you know it. Your wife will prefer to be with him and not you.
Hector: Can’t I just go home and explain?

Apparently not.

The Scientist: If you travel back into the past and alter events, stopping Hector 1 from getting in the tank, there will be three of you which will likely cause a chain reaction of events beyond your control.

Hell, for all we know one [or more] of them is posting here.

Hector: You knew what would happen.
The Scientist: Yes.
Hector: Why?
The Scientist: Because Hector 3 told me.
Hector: Hector 3? .
The Scientist: Hector 3 – the third one.
Hector: You’re kidding me?
The Scientist: You weren’t the first to appear in the tank. You were the second. The first had appeared earlier. He had threatened me. He made me act surprised to see you. He made me go along with it.

My guess: we'll never really know.

Hector: Wait a minute. You mean the second trip I’m about to take was already made?
The Scientist: Apparently, you couldn’t solve your little problem. You told me yourself it failed.
Hector: It makes no sense.

Tell me about it.

Aldous Huxley from Brave New World

“They're old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God now"
"But God doesn't change"
"Men do though”

Hint, hint.

That is the secret of happiness and virtue -- liking what you've got to do.

Happiness, maybe.

Well, I'd rather be unhappy than have the sort of false, lying happiness you were having here.

Me? Still too close to call.

Man is an intelligence, not served by, but in servitude to his organs.

You know the ones.

The optimum population is modeled on the iceberg---eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above.

The last time we measured.

But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art.

You tell me.

One of those Nothing Is As It Seems films. Some being better than others of course. The important thing here is that you actually give a damn about it being one way rather than another. And that basically revolves around your reaction to the character it’s all happening to. If you come to care about him, you’re rooting for him.

And I liked Jake…so there you are.

Nothing really goes too, uh, deep here. A lot of twists and turns in and around Hollywood. And isn’t that where sexual dysfunction and really bad films are born? There’s a lot of that here. But as with the “murder mystery” itself it all seems rather tongue in cheek. You’re never really meant to take it all that seriously.

And then there’s Melanie Griffith as Holly Body. She is absolutely delicious in this role. Fucking great. In fact she was nominated for a Golden Globe; and for a Circle Award by the New York Film Critics; and won the Best Supporting Actress award from the National Society of Film Critics.

And, yes, that weird house is the real thing. It’s not just a potemkin village. Or some special effects gimmick.

Brian De Palma originally planned for this to be the first Hollywood film to boast unsimulated sex scenes. The studio thought differently.

Bret Easton Ellis’ book American Psycho references this film many times, it is one of the main character, Patrick Bateman’s, favorite movies.

Dennis Franz based his portrayal of Rubin the Director on Brian De Palma. IMDb


Body Double

Detective [to Jake]: I want you to think real hard about this. As far as I’m concerned you’re the real reason Gloria Revelle got murdered. If you hadn’t been so busy getting off by peeping on her…if you had called the police about your blood brother, the Indian, Gloria Revelle would still be alive.

Not even close, of course.

Male Porno Star: I’m not just a stunt cock, I’m an ACTOR!

Of course, they all say that.

Jake [auditioning for a porno flick in order to meet Holly Body]: I like to watch.
Porn producer: Makes you hot, doesn’t it?
Jake: Yeah.
Porn producer: Makes me hot too. Real hot. Come over here. I’ll show you how hot.
[he tosses the “script” on the desk]:
Porn producer: All right. Take off your clothes. I want to take some pictures.
Jake: Um, okay. What is that we’re watching?
Porn producer: I don’t know. What are you some kind of method actor?

Not many of them in porno, I suspect.

Porno director’s assistant: Where’s the come shot?
Porno director: Huh? Come?
Porno director’s assistant: The come shot. I thought we were shooting “Body Shots” here. Not Last Tango In Paris.

And, of course, the equivalent of that here.

Holly Body: I do not do animal acts. I do not do S&M or any variations of that particular bent, no water sports either. I will not shave my pussy, no fistfucking and absolutely no coming in my face. I get $2000 a day and I do not work without a contract.

Let's run this by Stormy Daniels.

Holly Body: I have a routine that is a sure 10 on the peter-meter.

Pass the viagra?

Kimberly: By the way what’s the film about?
Holly Body: That’s good. We need more comedians in the business.

This scene with Kimberly and Holly is a true classic!

Holly Body [shouting out loud to herself]: Fucking freaky actors! Masochistic directors! I should have known when he didn’t even know what a come shot was!

Want me to explain it to you.

Holly Body: You’re going to get a lot of dates when this comes out.

I forget, did he?

The proposition is simple: You kill one brother and we won’t kill the other. And why not. The one he has to kill is a shitbird so foul and disgusting you’re thinking in some cases abortion ought to be mandatory. Or, as Captain Stanley puts it, “Arthur Burns is a monster, an abonination.” The massacre at the Hopkins place for example.

The wild, wild west we had over here in America is like an episode from Bonanza compared to what the went on in Australia. Or so it seems. Deadwood comes closer to this. And this film is said to portray it about as authentically as can be done. Right down to the buttons on the clothes.

And the aboriginals. But it’s not like there was much talk [back then] of equality—separate or otherwise. Is this the way nature intended for us to be? Is “civilization” still largely an illusion. Something we invented to tame the beast…on paper?

As for Martha…feminism was clearly a million miles away. A lot of tough calls here.

And, yes, David Gulpilil is in this one too.

Oh, and what a great performance put in by John Hurt. This one: https://youtu.be/QUVsDy0sc3k?si=Z4k6PTJWLuhC8Rx8


The Proposition

Captain Stanley: Australia. What fresh hell is this?

And hell is certainly one way to describe it. And, for some, the only way.

Captain Stanley: Make no mistake, Mr. Burns, I will civilize this land.

Or, of course, die trying.

Captain Stanley: I wish to present you with a proposition. I know where Arthur Burns is. It is a God-forsaken place. The blacks won’t go there, not the tracks; not even wild men. I suppose, in time, the bounty hunters will get him. But I have other plans, I aim to bring him down - I aim to show that he’s a man like any other. I aim to hurt him. And what will most hurt him? Well I thought long and hard about that, and I’ve realized Mr. Burns, that I must become more inventive in my methods. But those be my words listen to me now, don’t say a word. Now suppose I told there was a way to save your little brother Mikey from the noose. Suppose I gave you a horse, and a gun. Suppose Mr. Burns, I was to give you and your young brother Mikey here a pardon. Suppose I said that I could give you a chance to expunge the guilt, beneath which you so clearly labor. Suppose I gave you 'til Christmas. Now, suppose you tell me what it is I want from you.
Charlie: You want me to kill me brother.
Captain Stanley: I want you to kill your brother.

That's the proposition alright. Now, let's see what unfolds in reality.

Lamb: Forgive me, sir, but I’ve been stuck here with no one but this sorry sack of Hibernian pig shit for conversation. Poor, poor Dan O’Reilly. Sit, sir. Drink with me.
[Charlie cocks his gun and points it to Lamb]
Charlie: One more crack about the Irish, Mr. Lamb, and I’ll shoot you. Am I clear?
Lamb: Oh, as the waters of Ennis, sir. Let us drink, then, to the Irish. No finer race of men have ever… peeled a potato.
[Charlie cocks his gun again and points it to Lamb]
Charlie: Do you pray, Mr. Lamb?
Lamb: Good Lord, son, no, I do not. I was, in days gone by, a believer. But alas, I came to this beleaguered land, and the God in me just . . . evaporated. Let us change our toast, sir. To the God who has forgotten us.

Cheers!

Lamb: Charles, perhaps you’ve read “On the Origin of the Species By Means of Natural Selection” by Charles Darwin. Oh, don’t be thrown by the title, he had some most fascinating things to say. Chilling things. Mr. Darwin spent time studying Aboriginals. He claims we are, at bottom, one in the same. He infers, Mr. Murphy, that we share a common ancestry with monkeys.
[cackles]
Lamb: Monkeys!!!

He means apes of course. And it's not for nothing that we are often referred to as "naked apes".

Lamb: Mr. Murphy, Russia, China, the Congo, oh, I have traveled among unknown people in lands beyond the seas. But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for this godforsaken hole.

Then the godforsaken hole that I am in here.

Lamb [speaking of Arthur Burns]: We are white men, Sir, not beasts. Oh, he sits up there in those melancholy hills; some say he sleeps in caves like a beast, slumbers deep like the Kraken. The Blacks say that he is a spirit. The Troopers will never catch him. Common force is meaningless, Mr. Murphy, as he squats up there on his impregnable perch. So I wait, Mr. Murphy. I wait.
Charlie [Knocks Jellon out with a beer mug]: Aye, you wait. You wait here… bounty hunter.

It's not over between them though.

Fletcher: Word came this morning from Eight Mile Creek that Dan O’Reilly’s place was attacked.
Captain Stanley: Are you sure it was blacks?
Fletcher: Dan O’Reilly had so many spears in him that he resembled your good old garden variety English hedgehog. It’s simple, Captain. It’s called the law of recirocity. Kill one of them and they are going to kill one of ours.

And the equivalent of that here from time to time.

Lamb [to a trussed up Charlie]: To be speared by a savage. How extraordinarily quaint.

Among other things, of course.

Lamb: For what is an Irishman but a n***** turned inside out?

It is the outback, right?

Lamb [his dying words]: There’s night and day brother, both sweet things. Sun and Moon and stars, all sweet things. And quiet, there’s a wind on the east. Life is very sweet, brother.
Arthur: Life is very sweet, brother, who would wish to die?
Lamb: Ah.
Arthur: George Borrow, I believe. A worthy writer, and a beautiful sentiment sir. But you’re not my brother.
[he pushes his knife into Lamb]
Arthur: This may hurt.

Yes, that's exactly what it appeared to do...hurt him.

Samuel [looking out at the sun setting]: It sure is pretty.
Arthur: You can never get your fill of nature, Samuel. To be surrounded by it is to be stilled. It salves the heart. The mountains, the trees, the endless plains. The moon, the myriad stars. Every man can be made quiet and complete. Even the lowliest misanthrope or the most wretched of sinners.
Samuel: What’s a misanthrope, Arthur?
Two Bob: Some bugger who fuckin’ hates every other bugger.
Samuel: Hey, I didn’t ask you, you black bastard
Arthur: He’s right Samuel. A misanthrope is one who hates humanity.
Samuel: Is that what we are, misanthropes?
Arthur: Good lord no. We’re a family!

Just like we are here!

It’s hard to believe this is the same actor who played Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. I liked that one too. But this is my favorite performance by Michelle Williams. Wendy is the character I would most like to meet [again] in “real life”. And there is not any particular reason why. At least none that I’ve come up with. Well, other than the fact I’ve known folks just like her. On the other hand, who hasn’t dreamed of making it all the the way up to Alaska…getting away from all the shit down here. Just being able to start some new shit there. And with your beloved dog.

But when you are out on the road to getting there things can become precarious as hell. It’s almost always about the goddamn money. And you either know what it’s like to be in a situation like this or you don’t. And I do. And I’ve met a Wendy or two or three or four along the way.

I’m just grateful the filmaker didn’t go all the way in depicting what might have happened to her with that miscreant out in the woods. Coming as close as they did was gruesome enough for me.

Director Kelly Reichardt was worried that Michelle Williams was “too pretty” to play the role. She asked Williams to go without makeup and not wash her hair for two weeks during filming.

Michelle Williams was so scruffy during filming that when bystanders came up to chat with the crew they totally ignored her.


Wendy and Lucy

Security guard: You can’t sleep here Ma’am.
Wendy: My car won’t start.
Security guard: Yeah, I can hear that. But you can’t park here. That’s the rules. You’re just gonna have to get the car off the property.

What an asshole. Her car is in the middle of this big, empty Walgreens parking lot! But then that’s what he is paid to be. In fact, it turns out he’s nothing like he is paid to be. He’s decent, in other words.

Andy: The rules apply to everyone. If a person can’t afford dog food they shouldn’t have a dog.
Store manager: Andy…
Andy: The food is not the issue, sir. It’s about setting an example, right?
Wendy: Sir, I’m not from around here. I can’t be an example.

Andy would make the perfect Nazi. You just want to punch him in the face. Or, rather, you would if you were me.

Wendy: Not a lot of jobs around here, huh?
Security Guard: I’ll say. I don’t know what the people do all day. Used to be a mill. But that’s been closed a long time now. Don’t know what they do
Wendy: You can’t get a job without an address, anyway. Or a phone.
Security Guard: You can’t get an address without an address. You can’t get a job without a job. It’s all fixed.

Trump'll change all that.

Lucy [weeping]: I’m sorry, Lu. I lost the car. You be good. I’ll be back. I’m gonna make some money and I’ll come back. Okay, Lu? Be good.

You just don’t get more alone than she is here. And hunched down in that train car, it just breaks your fucking heart.

It was by sheer coincidence this film came out in the same year that the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident had made headlines around the globe:

The movie was released on March 16, 1979. By a bizarre irony, the disaster at the nuclear power plant at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island happened just 13 days later on March 28th IMDb

And I will never forget that. Why? Because I live in Baltimore County, Maryland and this nuclear power plant was close enough [Dauphin County, Pennsylvania] that had the worst possible scenario been realized – with the wind blowing in the right [meaning the wrong] – direction it could have been a true calamity. There was actually talk of having to evacuate the entire area. And to make matters worse it happened the same week I had had surgery. I could barely hobble around the fucking house!

But not much about the industry since. At least not in America. On the other hand, TMI virtually put a stop to what many predicted would be a colossal growth in the use of nuclear power in the US of A.

More to the point, the film exposes the very, very intimate [incestuous] relationship between crony capitalism and the corporate media. For a story like this one they all work together as a seamless unit to protect the bottom line. And that ain’t the safety of the community. The fix was in.

The movie’s title is based on the theoretical but implausible notion that if a nuclear meltdown were to occur in the United States, the nuclear core would melt all the way through the Earth’s core and emerge on the other side of the world. However, China is simply a metaphor for the other side of the world. If such an event could occur it would emerge in the Indian Ocean.

When the film was first released on 16 March 1979, nuclear power executives soon lambasted the picture as being “sheer fiction” and a “character assassination of an entire industry”. Then twelve days after its launch, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. It was commented how the events had left nuclear executives embarrassed with egg on their faces. IMDb


The China Syndrome

Gibson: There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a routine turbine trip.

And that's all it might have...this time.

Jack: See where that water’s coming from. Wherever it’s coming from we’ve got to get rid of it. Look at this, Ted. Hey Barney, open 14 a d 15.
Ted: You can’t do that.
Jack: Open 'em Barney.
Ted: The book says your can’t.
Jack: Screw the book. We’re almost up to the steam lines!

Unless, perhaps, the needle is just "stuck"?

We may have uncovered the core!

Time to come down out of the clouds?

Jack: We gotta dump pressure!
Barney: Jack! We can’t take that chance!
Jack: Gordon, you let me know the split second the LPCI comes in. Water…
Ted: Eight inches. Still droppin’.
Jack [looking up to the Heavens]: Oh, please, God, cover it!
[Jack is sweating bullets]
Jack: COVER IT!
[after what seems like an eternity]
Ted: It’s coming up. It’s coming up! We got it!!

PTL!

Kimberly [after the decision to keep the film in the vault]: Richard, I am not ashamed that I have got a good job and I have every intention of keeping it and getting a better one. And if that means they’ve got me then they’ve got me.

If it was your job [your livlihood] on the line would you do “the right thing”?

Jack: What makes you think they’re looking for a scapegoat?
Ted: Tradition.

This time around it's...Kamala?

Greg Minor [nuclear engineer after viewing Richard’s film]: I may be wrong, but I’d say you’re lucky to be alive. For that matter, I think we might say the same for the rest of Southern California.

Not to mention China:

Greg Minor: I don’t know, but they might have come close to exposing the core.
Elliot Lowell [physics professor]: If that’s true, then we came very close to the China Sydrome.
Kimberly: The what?
Elliot Lowell: If the core is exposed for whatever reason the fuel heats beyond core heat tolerance in a matter of minutes. Nothing can stop it. It melts right down through the bottom of the plant…theoretically to China. Of course as soon as it hits ground water it blasts into the atmosphere and sends out clouds of radiation. The number of people killed would depend on which way the wind is blowing. Rendering an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable…not to mention the cancer that would show up later.

I think we might be safe though in virtual reality.

Jack: I decided to double check the welding Xrays. They’re identical, Herman. It’s the same picture over and over and over.
Herman: Come on, Jack no contractor can possibly supply every stupid document the government calls for. So they didn’t take all the pictures they were supposed to. So what? These Xrays are 6 years old.
Jack: So are those welds down there. We should get radiographs of the pump support structure.
Herman: What? That’s absurd. You know how long that will take, Jack? What it would cost? $15 million to $20 million. Forget it! Go back to the control room and start her up. We go back on-line today. The company is losing half a million bucks a day. Start her up Jack.

That way they can always fall back on him as the scapegoat.

McCormack: What’s our alternative, let this lunatic wipe out a billion dollar investment? At least this buys time; it will take the press an hour to get here.
Gibson: I wouldn’t count on it.
McCormack: I’m counting on you to take care of the God damn press. Now you do your Job, and let me do mine.
Gibson: Yes sir.

Like we do our jobs here. Well, some of us, anyway.

McCormack: Scram the son of a bitch!

For starters.

Ted [of Jack]: He was not a loony. He was the sanest man I ever knew in my life.

Next up: the sanest among us here.

John Fowles from The Magus

Death starves us of life. So we learn to fabricate our own immortalities.

Got a few of them here, of course.

It was not the mask I was afraid of...but of what lay behind the mask. The eternal source of all fear, all horror, all real evil, man himself

And then, occasionally, an evil woman. Got a few of them here, in fact.

Your first reaction is the characteristic one of your contrasuggestible century: to disbelieve, to disprove. I see this very clearly underneath your politeness.

Next up: Nicholas the Stooge?

Staring out to sea, I finally forced myself to stop thinking of her as someone still somewhere, if only in memory, still obscurely alive, breathing, doing, moving, but as a shovelful of ashes already scattered; as a broken link, a biological dead end, an eternal withdrawal from reality, a once complex object that now dwindled, dwindled, left nothing behind except a l like a fallen speck of soot on a blank sheet of paper.

Allison? She's now smack dab in the middle of the spin cycle, herself!

A look I shall never forget, because it was almost one of hatred, and hatred in her face was like spite in the Virgen Mary's; it reversed the entire order of nature.

Not unlike my own assessments here, right?

But he was absolutely alone. No one ever wrote to him. Visited him. Totally alone. And I believe the happiest man I have ever met.

Actually, I may well have written the book here.

“Don’t trust nobody.”

With the long con you’re always wondering: Could they do that to me? Would I fall for it? And chances are you’e thinking: no fucking way. You’re just too smart to be reeled in like this sucker. Let alone to swallow the bait.

But few are smarter than she thought she was. Still, we all have our vulnerabilities. And a grifter [gifted to be sure] can spot them a mile away. The “tell”. And then play it for all it’s worth.

Margaret’s? She’s…anal. She’s locked up tighter than a drum. But [apparently] she is looking for someone to pry her open. Mike does. He opens her up and then some. And for that he will end up paying the ultimate price.

But, come on, we all know the most common tell of all is greed. Here you have the suckers lining up. Only Margaret doesn’t have a clue.

Let’s face it, most of us go about this sort of thing vicariously. We step outside the law abiding world by watching Sons of Anarchy. Few have what it takes to actually become a member of the fabled 1%. But some of us want to. And Mike hooks one of them here.

Or, rather, the script does.

Ricky Jay is a sleight-of-hand artist and an acknowledged authority on the art of the con. In an NPR interview, Jay related that when David Mamet needed a short-change scam to be explained in “House of Games”, he asked Jay for details of an authentic short-change hustle. However, Jay did not want to betray the confidence of the hustlers he knew who still used various short-change cons for their “livelihood”. The envelope switch you see in the final film is an original switch invented by Ricky Jay specially for the film. Later, it was reported that an amateur thief had been caught attempting to use the switch as he had learned it from the film.

According to Mamet, despite the excellent reviews the film received in a limited showing in four theaters, Orion decided against spending the money for the prints and publicity that would have accompanied a general release and sent the film almost directly to TV and video. IMDb


House of Games

Billy: What am I doing here?
Margaret: You’re here to take control of your life.
Billy: You wanna know something? What the hell do you care? You’re rich. You’re comfortable. You got your goddamn book you wrote. All the time you wanna help me, you don’t do dick, man. You don’t do nothing. You and your goddamn book, it’s talk. It’s just talk. The whole thing is a con game.

Do scripts get any more ironic than this one does here?

Mike: Wait, wait, wait. What is this? What are you gonna do to me? What are you fronting off about? And if I’m this bad dude, why don’t I just take out some gun, blow you to a billion parts?
Margaret: I’ll tell you why. Cuz I think you’re just a bully.
Mike [chuckles]: Just a bully? What, you’re not gonna let me carry your books? Aren’t you a caution.
Margaret: Let’s talk turkey, pal.

Her turkey...or his?

Mike [to Margaret]: Do you know what a “tell” is?

Here's one I found here: "No, you fucking little asshole. That was an opening assertion of my belief. Are you senile?"

Mike: I think you’re bluffin’. I think you’re tryin’ to buy it.
George: Then you’re gonna have to give me some respect or give me some money.

Cue the squirt gun.

George: I told you a squirt gun wouldn’t work.
Mike: A squirt gun would’ve worked–you didn’t have to fill it!

Oh, he had to alright.

Margaret: A sucker born every minute, huh?
Mike: And two to take 'em.

"At least two back in the day", Rebecca reminded me.

Mike [to Margaret]: The basic idea is this. It’s called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine. How do you get money when you have no money? Watch closely. This is called “short con”.

With tons and tons of suckers to be taken, of course.

Margaret: So you can’t cheat an honest man?
Mike: That’s probably true. But what we’ve just seen is a slightly different principle.
Margaret: Which is?
Mike: Don’t trust nobody.
Margaret: Were you in the Marines?
Mike: Everybody gets something out of every transaction. I give that guy my confidence. I ask him for help. What he gets is he feels like he’s a good man.

Only God knows for sure.

Mike: Do you wanna make love with me?
Margaret: Excuse me?
Mike: Because you’re blushing. That’s a tell. The things we think, the things we want. We could do them or not do them but we can’t hide them.
Margaret: What is it you think I want?
Mike: I’ll tell you. Somebody to come along. Somebody to possess you. To take you into a new thing. Would you like that? Do you want that?
Margaret: Yes.

Cue the rapist?

Margaret: Some people would say that you’re an interesting man.
Mike: I’m a con man. That’s what I am. I’m a criminal. You don’t have to delude yourself. You can call things what they are. You can call yourself what you are.
Margaret: What am I?
Mike: Listen to me. Cos there are a lot of things in the world. There are many sides to each of us. Good blood. Bad blood. Somehow, all those parts have got to speak. You know what I’m talking about. The burden of responsibility has become too great. It’s true, isn’t it?
Margaret: Yes, it is.
Mike: Babe, I know that it is. I read a book once which said this: If you’re fired from your job, when you’re going home, take something. A pencil, something to assert yourself. Take a memento. Take something from life. I think what draws you to me is this: I’m not afraid to examine the rules and to assert myself. And I think you aren’t either.
Margaret: Do you really think so?
Mike: Yes. That’s exactly what I think.

Want to know what I think?

Joey: The bitch is a booster.
Mike: The bitch is a born thief, man.
Dean: So, you had her made from the jump?
Mike: I’m tellin’ ya. A ton of fuckin’ bricks! Show me some REAL con-men.
Joey: Yeah, we showed her some con-men.
Mike: We showed her some DINOSAUR con-men. Some old style.
Joey: Yes, sir.
Mike: Years from now, they’re gonna have to go to a museum to see a frame like this.
Joey: That’s right.
Dean: Took her money and screwed her, too.
Mike: A small price to pay.

Guess who overheard that? Though she did boost the knife, as I recall.

Mike [to Margaret]: My knife. You said you took my knife from the hotel room. You see, in my trade, this is called - what you did - you cracked out of turn. You crumbed the play.

Cracking out of turn here. And, as likely as not, not even realizing it.

Mike: What do you want? What do you fucking want from me? You want your 80 grand back? I can’t give it back. I split it up. So what do you want? Revenge?
Margaret: I gave you my trust.
Mike: Of course you gave me your trust. That’s what I do for a living! You asked me what I did for a living. This is it. Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. Really. You’re a good kid.

Not really as it turns out. And thanks to Mike, right?

Mike: What? What do you want me to do?
Margaret: You took my money.
Mike: How naughty of me.
Margaret: You raped me. You took me under false pretences.
Mike: Well, that’s just what happened, isn’t it? OK, you got stung. And you’re hurt. I can understand that. I wanna know how you could do what you did to me. It wasn’t personal. And, funny as that sounds, I’m sorry that it happened. But it did. And we’ve all gotta live in an imperfect world.
Margaret: You used me.
Mike: I used you. I did. I’m sorry. And you learned things about yourself that you’d rather not know. I’m sorry for that. You say I acted atrociously. Yes, I did. I do it for a living.

More to point, however, for some, it's what he taught her.

Margaret [after shooting him in the leg]: Beg for your life, or I’m going to kill you.
Mike: Hey, fuck you! This is what you always wanted, you crooked bitch! You thief! You always need to get caught, cuz you know you’re bad. I never hurt anybody… I never shot anybody… You sought this out…This is what you always wanted. I knew it the first time you came in…You’re worthless, you know it? You’re a whore! You came back like a dog to its own vomit! You sick bitch! I’m not gonna give you shit!

Pick two:
1] his side
2] her side